


El Corazon

by tjmystic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Romancing the Stone AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Author Belle Desrosiers is thrust headlong into an adventure in Columbia when her sister Astrid is kidnapped.  But what happens when she and the mercenary she hired to help her get caught up in the hunt for a million-dollar jewel, too?</p>
            </blockquote>





	El Corazon

El Corazon (1/?)   
Chapter 1: The Adventures of Lacey French

Rating: PG (for now - you know my rule about the twelfth chapter, though *winks*)

Author’s Note: As Accustomed ends, El Corazon begins :D You can thank kelyon and wayamy27narf for this - I promised to give them a sneak peek yesterday and post tomorrow, but, as I didn’t do the former, I decided to just give all of you a treat and post today instead.

For those who don’t remember (since it’s been about 2 months since I’ve posted anything about this story :S), this is an AU of the 1980s movie “Romancing the Stone”, which is, for all intents and purposes, the cheesy romance version of the Indiana Jones movies. I’m not sure how often I’m going to be updating this one, but, as it’s quickly becoming one of my favorite verses, I wouldn’t worry too much about my posting schedule for it :) Alright, enough of my stalling - if you have any questions I haven’t covered yet, I’m sure you’ll be filling up my inbox soon enough. Hope you enjoy!

 

Lacey was trapped. 

She’d thought there was a chance, the stone wall at her back weak enough that she could smash through and make a decent escape. But the moment she pressed her palms against it, the bricks crumbling and crushing at her touch, she saw where she’d made her mistake - the wall concealed nothing but the dead drop of a cliffside. There was no way out of the village barracks now. She could run, she could try to clear the buildings and leap the fence at the end. 

But would she make it before the yaoguai attacked?

She took a shaking breath, pulling up the cloak that the monster had ripped from her shoulders. The velvet hadn’t satisfied its hunger, body still pacing viciously before her, pawing at the ground as it prepared for its next attack. Its last victim, the poor beggar she’d saved from the yaoguai’s den, lay dead in the grass behind it, blood oozing from his neck. Lacey looked away from him, and looked back at the pawing demon. 

Or, at least she’d thought it was pawing. The closer she looked, though, the more the scratch marks looked like symbols. Words. And, the more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed that she was still alive. She’d been alone, cornered, for nearly a full minute now. If it had wanted her dead, she surely would be by now.

Lacey stepped closer, moving slowly in case it was just the monster’s trick. But it didn’t advance – it only pawed harder, head bowed to keep her attention. She nodded at it, stopped at a respectful distance lest its burning mane ignite her hands, and pulled out the book of translations she’d kept with her since her first days in the brothel. The symbols brought back memories of men from the east who smelled like incense and looked with slanted eyes. Men like her beloved Shan-Yu, whose village had been burnt by this very monster five months ago. She shivered, and turned until she saw the right markings.

“‘Me’…” she read slowly, inching just slightly closer to the sand markings. “‘Help’. Help me. I am… cursed.”

Lacey snapped to face the creature again. “Cursed?” she whispered. “You… you’re cursed? How?”

The beast roared, but Lacey held her ground. That wasn’t a noise of warning or attack – it was a noise borne of helplessness and desperation. 

“Alright, alright,” she soothed. “Can you try to spell it out for me?”

It lifted its paw and scrawled something quickly into the sand, the lettering messy and almost illegible. All the while, it shook its head, almost as if it were dying from a nervous twitch. Lacey flipped quickly through her book, eyes glued to the page as she tried to find the symbol. She didn’t notice that the blood had mysteriously disappeared from the ground around the beggar.

“Time?” she tried, pointing to a symbol near the back. It shook its head violently, and Lacey looked again. “Time… you’re saying you don’t have time. The curse, it will be stuck.”

The beast nodded its mane frantically. Its tail, still burning like the rest of its fur, pointed to the clock tower in the barrack square. Ten minutes to midnight. Lacey’s heart, already beating rapidly against her ribcage, felt fit to burst from her chest. She knew well enough by now the connection that magic had with the witching hour. 

“I… I’m so sorry,” she stammered. “I can’t help you. There isn’t time, I can’t – ”

The yaoguai lunged at her, its claws swiping at the pouch about her waist. Lacey covered her heart, sure the beast intended to rip it out. But it made no move to do so. Bewildered, she looked down at the thing’s paw, wondering manically if it was trying to rob her when it ripped the bag open, and a vial hit the sand. A vial filled with glowing pink sparkles. 

Lacey gasped. The fairy dust. She’d all but forgotten about it. 

“How did you know about that?”

It rumbled at her. Lacey narrowed her eyes, looking straight into its – there was something dreadfully familiar about that sound. Something that she knew but couldn’t place. As were its eyes, much too dark and liquid and so intensely familiar. 

Lacey glanced at her vial of dust, and nodded sharply, resigned. Whatever she’d been saving it for no longer mattered – she would break the curse of the yaoguai. 

“Stand back,” she commanded, rising to her knees as she uncorked the bottle. A faint cloud of smoke swirled from the lid, along with a scent almost like sugar. The monster’s eyes widened, almost humanlike in its fear, and Lacey, too, held her breath as she slowly tipped the bottle over its body.

For a moment, nothing seemed to happen. The dust spread itself wisplike over the lion-like body of the beast, dancing over its fur and fire, but no change took place. Overhead, the clock tower chimed.

Lacey released her lungs, letting air whoosh disappointedly out of them. It hadn’t worked. The magic hadn’t –

The yaoguai howled, twisting painfully as it was lifted into the air. Lacey collapsed onto her back, face bight with fear and shock as she watched the madness overhead. The monster’s snout receded with a sickening crunch, leaving a pale, hairless nose in its wake. The paws grew fingers and toes, five on each and covered with scars where its own claws had broken skin. Orange hair fell away, leaving a mass of ebony in its wake. And all the while, the roars of agony turned slowly into screams.

It wasn’t a beast – it was human.

It – he – gave a final shout, and, suddenly, the pink dust burst into streams of light, igniting the air as the body plummeted to the floor. Stunned, amazed though she was, Lacey fought off the terror that kept her glued to the flagstones. She needed to make sure he wasn’t hurt. She needed to make sure the dust had actually done its job. 

Her arms shook as she crawled forward, shins aching and elbows trembling in the wake of what she’d seen. The man still smoked like he’d been set on fire, and it struck her that he didn’t move, not even to breathe. She gulped, and touched his ashen shoulder.

“Are you okay?” she stammered, too quiet, really, to be heard by anyone but herself. Still, though, it panicked her when he didn’t make any action to answer her.

“Please, are you alright?”

Again, the man lay still, his face shoved into the stones where he’d fallen. She took another deep breath, steeling herself for whatever she might find, and rolled him onto his back. 

Whatever she’d been meaning to ask him, whatever she’d wanted to say to make sure he was alright, died in her throat at the sight of his tanned skin, his closed, slanted eyes, his strong arms. She’d dreamed about them often enough that they almost gave her pause. But no – they were real. He was real. 

And she’d know him anywhere. 

It was her Shan-Yu. 

Lacey’s knees wobbled, and had she been standing, she would’ve fallen in an instant. 

“You’re not dead,” she murmured dazedly. “You’re here.”

She reached out, longing to touch his dark hair, but something stopped her just as her feet hit the floor.

“You stupid, meddlesome girl!” 

Lacey steeled her feet, intent on spinning to face whoever stood behind her, but she was a moment too late. A knife, sharp and gnarled, twisted into her throat, cutting off her air and pulling her against a thin chest and arms. The smell of dirt and decay surrounded her, an odor she’d come to know well over the past few months.

Her eyes flickered to the spot where the beggar had previously been lying – he was gone. 

The knife’s grip tightened on her neck. “I should’ve known you’d have something up your sleeve,” he hissed, drawing the rags that had just been covered in his own blood around her chest. 

“What… are you doing?” she coughed.

The beggar didn’t answer. “You worthless thing! I hired you to kill the beast, not romance it!”

Lacey choked. “He’s not a beast. His name is Shan-Yu.”

He laughed. “Oh, I know good and well what his name is, missy. I wouldn’t have cursed him if I didn’t know who he was!”

Her eyes, which she’d been trying so hard to shut, suddenly went wide. “You? You cursed him? 

The knife angled sharper into her throat, and she was sure she could smell her own blood. 

“Of course I cursed him,” he spat. “He’s the leader of the northern army. I take him down, I take his place, and I’m suddenly in control of the whole world. But then you,” he kicked the back of her shins, “decided to slay the beast yourself. A filthy whore from the Marchlands. I should have known about you, I should have estimated you better! And now you’ve gone and ruined everything. But not for long. No, not for long.”

Lacey struggled against her binds, willing Shan-Yu to wake up. But the beggar’s grip tightened again, and she allowed herself to relax. This was no different than her days at the brothel. This was just lesson she’d learned early, and it wouldn’t do to forget it now – no one would save her but herself.

Her brain hitched into overdrive even as she worked against the man’s hold. He hadn’t thought things through, that much was obvious, his plan little more than harebrained and ridiculous. Those sort of plans were borne only of desperation, never of the cold calculation that she herself was capable of, and judging by the way his hands roved over her without thought, the way that his breath shook against her throat, that desperation was only mounting. 

And desperation tended to make people blind.

Another lesson she’d learned throughout the years. 

Struggling against the man’s hands, she searched the yard for anything she could use. Any swords or blades she might have used were too far away to do any good, as was the sand beneath her feet. Contrary to the beggar’s words, she had no stilettos in her sleeves, nor any shurikens in her hair. She tried again with sheer body strength alone, hefting him forward in an effort to fake him out, but he only swung her backwards, his body deceptively solid. The stones at their back crackled at the pressure, and Lacey heard the trickle as they fell into the gorge below. Yet the beggar pushed ever harder into it.

She blinked. The wall. The beggar didn’t know about the wall.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he growled into her ear. “First you, then the soldier.”

Lacey pulled at his elbow, hoping he’d fight back enough that releasing his arm would create enough tension along the bricks. 

“Now, how would you like to die?”

She braced her foot against the stone.

“Quick?”

Her foot kicked along the loose bricks at the bottom. Just another inch. Just one solid push.

“Or slow?”

The blade tipped into Lacey’s skin, and she took her chance. With a roar befitting of her monster, she rammed herself and the beggar into the wall, smashing it apart with a satisfying crack. 

“You first!” she growled. 

She pounded backwards again, hands braced on the stones that hadn’t crumbled, and the knife around her neck went slack. The arms about her body fell loose, and she watched in horror as the beggar fell through the gap, his eyes wide, his mouth open and screaming. A cloud of smoke encircled him as he neared the rocks below, dark but reminiscent of the magic in her vial, but it – and the man himself – was gone the moment she blinked. 

“Rot in hell, you bastard,” she panted. 

“Lacey?”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she spun quickly on her knees. Shan-Yu was sitting back on his haunches, groggy and shaking. But he was alive. And he was here, reaching for her.

“Shan,” she sighed. A beat of her heart hardly passed before she was leaping into his arms, holding him close and kissing him for all she was worth. He was alive. Her sob of joy vibrated on his lips, and he held her every closer, petting her hair and cheeks and waist and everything else he could reach. 

“Thank you,” he whispered fervently. “You saved me.” 

Lacey laughed tearily. “Of course I did – I love you.”

The look he gave her back was worth every battle she’d fought, every death she’d heralded, every man she’d seduced to get free. “I love you, too.” 

Their lips met furiously again, the weight of all the months apart falling from them like rotting leaves. She felt she could happily die in that moment, wrapped in his arms, her tongue cradling his. 

But all too soon he was pushing her away, his familiar, business-like paranoia darkening his face.

“What happened to him?”

“Him?” she asked confusedly. “You mean the beggar?”

Shan-Yu snorted. “He’s no beggar – he’s a great sorcerer.”

“Well, whatever he is, he’s dead now. I pushed him off the cliff.” 

“Did you see the body?” 

Lacey’s eyes creased, and her hand dropped from his hair. “What does that matter?” 

“Because,” he moaned, raising himself up on his elbow, “he’s magic. He can transport himself, or regenerate, or any other number of things. He could be waiting for us right now. He… he…”

His eyes crossed, words catching in his throat. Lacey leant over him and kissed his forehead.

“Shhh,” she soothed. “We’re safe. The fairy magic will protect you for awhile yet, and I’m not afraid. We can search for him later – now you need your rest.”

She leaned away, but made it only as far as her knees before his lips were back on hers. “No,” he groaned. “I need you.” 

Lacey smiled into his kiss, wrapping her arms tight about his neck. 

“I need you, too,” she murmured. “I’ve always needed you.”

A final time, his lips met hers, and then he stopped still against the ground. His heart beat steadily under hers, and his eyes drifted shut with exhaustion.

Lacey stroked his temple, and took stock of the weapons nearby. When he woke, they’d both have questions. Who the beggar was, where the army was. How Shan-Yu had survived. Why he was the only one cursed. How long they had to prepare for war.

But for a few more hours, they could let the worries pass them by. They were together. They were loved. They were safe. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Belle grinned, and finally set down her laptop.

“Done,” she sighed. “Finally done.”

With a final addition of “The End” to the bottom of the page, she plugged in her printer and let the chapter fly. She stretched as she stood to her feet, limbs half-asleep from sitting on the couch for so long, and pulled out her phone to text, “Finished. Meet u @ lnch 2morrow.” It was probably rude to text her publisher, Mallory, at nearly 2 in the morning, especially if she was spending the night with that Omani executive Jafar again, but Belle couldn’t help it – the end of any of her books always left her jumpy and unable to sleep, and she couldn’t help but share that excitement with her only real friend.

Belle Desrosiers had written a good number of books in her day. Romance novels, for the most part, some of which were very cheesy if she were being honest. Still, though, all were relatively popular in the market, and a few had even garnered her spots on the New York Times Best Sellers list. But at age 25, the stories of Lacey French – a woman who witnessed the slaughter of her whole family, was wanted by half the monarchs in her world, and had been forced into prostitution in order to escape – were her best sellers by far. 

Even though she’d written the saga herself, Belle could see why they were so popular. Unlike so many other female characters, Lacey didn’t allow herself to play the victim but instead fought to be the hero. She rescued whole towns, saved her fellow brothel workers from rape and worse, and survived on her own strength and intuition. She didn’t need a man to make her smart, and she didn’t need a sword to make her brave. She was everything that so many modern women aspired to be.

She was everything that Belle herself aspired to be. 

The bedroom door creaked open, followed by the sound of footsteps, and Belle turned around. 

“There’s my handsome man,” she grinned. “Back already, Gaston?” 

The cat, fat and obviously pleased at being addressed as a “handsome man”, meowed and nuzzled her foot. Belle chuckled. 

“I suppose you didn’t find any mice in the hallway. Well, we’ll just have to make our own celebration feast, then.”

Gaston purred happily in agreement, and Belle smiled as she picked him up.

“Let’s see what we have,” she said, nuzzling her cheek into his fur. “How bout some fish, hmm? Or I could cook us up some steak. Or… oh.”

The refrigerator popped open at her touch, revealing nothing but a few bottles of soda and an unlabeled box near the bottom. A sticky note inside the door read, “Go shopping”. She laughed – it seemed that their “feast” would be leftover hamburgers and a dish of catfood until she went shopping.

With a sigh, she sat the cat down and pulled their food from the fridge. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad life. She was a famous author with a wonderful suite in Manhattan. She had all the money she needed to get by (even if she did forget to use it most of the time) a library full of books for entertainment, and a loving cat to keep her company. But, selfish as it was, she couldn’t help but want more. 

For once, she thought, as she sat down the food between her and Gaston, it might be nice to be Lacey. To get up and go, no fear, no trepidation. To find romance in a foreign land and finally find her true love.

Belle shook her head. She was being silly and she knew it. She was clumsy, and inexperienced, and completely inept in the ways of the world outside New York. Had she lived in Australia for more than just a few years, and in someplace other than Sydney, even, she might’ve been better suited for an action-packed existence, but, as it was, she was nothing more or less than a boring city girl. It was safer if she stuck to her books. At least there she could create the ending she wanted.

But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that, just for once, it might be nice to have the adventure for herself.


End file.
